Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => HONEYBEE REMOVAL => Topic started by: BEEMAN on May 06, 2010, 09:50:48 pm

Title: Two more swarms, but small ones
Post by: BEEMAN on May 06, 2010, 09:50:48 pm
I was called by the meter department from the City of Franklin yesterday to go check out a bee hive in a water meter that the meter reader could not get into to read. I advised that I could not get to it until today. Last night while getting the equipment to do the bee extraction today, I noticed a small swarm in my orange tree. It was about the size of a softball. I got an empty bee shipping box and put them in the box. I then emptied them into my obersavation hive. Checked them today and the queen is already laying. I spotted her in the observation hive. She is a nice plump queen. The workers are strange looking as all of them have long slim bodies with dark black stripes.  They are very tame bees though. Most of my hives have bees with short stout bodies.
I went to check the hive in the meter box and found a nice bunch of tame bees with four sections of drawn combs about half the size of a basketball. I cut the comb out and shook the bees in the nuc box, picked them up about six thirty tonight. I also saw the queen when I cut the comb out. She was a nice plump queen. These bees were also very tame.                                                                                                                                                                             I now have to go to check on a hive in a tree, about head hight. I will check it out tomorrow. May have to do a cone extraction